Airboats Glide You To 'glades

WEEKEND BEST BET

October 18, 1996|By VALERIE HERSCH Special to the Sun-Sentinel

Airboats were devised decades ago as a way for fishermen, hunters and froggers to navigate the dense sawgrass of the Everglades.

Today, the whirring engines of the open-air boats also provide a popular diversion for tourists and nature enthusiasts who want to cut a swath through the River of Grass, and maybe learn a bit about the area's unique environment in the process.

A number of parks and attractions in South Florida, including two in Broward County, offers airboat tours of the Everglades. At Everglades Holiday Park, airboat captains pilot visitors on a one-hour, narrated tour.

Expect to see and hear about "all the different plants and animals we have out here in the 'Glades," said Clint Bridges, outside manager at the park.

Often sighted on tours are Florida otters, a variety of birds including black vultures and an occasional bald eagle, and of course, alligators.

While the underwater propellors of traditional boats can spook gators, whose hearing is as keen as that of dogs, Bridges said the above-water props on airboats tend not to disturb the creatures.

"So you can get a lot closer to 'em in an airboat," he said. "Ninety to ninety-five percent of our visitors see them."

The Everglades Park airboat tours include a stop at a simulated 18th century Indian village on an island five to six miles out in the Everglades.

On Indian Island, visitors can explore chickee huts where traditional Indian crafts are for sale and see a live alligator wrestling show. The other major airboat tour operation in Broward is at Sawgrass Recreation Park, which is home to an alligator and reptile exhibit, a replica of an 18th century Indian village and a birds of prey exhibit.

The airboat tours are "educational, informally speaking," said Sandy Manning, marketing director at the park. "We try to teach people and let them leave with a greater sense of pride about the Everglades and how fragile she is."

Because the Seminole Indian heritage is so closely tied to the Everglades, it is no surprise that the Miccosukee tribe operates an airboat tour business.

The airboat operation, which is based at the Miccosukee Village attraction on the Tamiami Trail, features a half-hour guided tour that stops for 10 minutes at an Indian camp. "There people can see how Indians traditionally lived in the Everglades on the little hammocks," said Debbie Tiger, marketing coordinator for the Miccosukee village.

For a tour with more flexibility, Tiger suggests scouting out one of the many independent airboat tour operators on Tamiami Trail along a six-mile stretch several miles west of Krome Avenue.

Among the independents is Buffalo Tiger's Tours, operated by a former tribal chairman about 12 miles west of Krome Avenue.

They advertise for business on the side of the road and are more flexible than the regular tours, Tiger said.

"They can go for extended periods of time, and they have different size boats," she said.